


not even to dream

by peacefrog



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M, Romance, The One Where Tomas is Pope, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 11:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefrog/pseuds/peacefrog
Summary: Tomas collapses down onto his bed with a sigh. “I don’t know why I ever accepted this position. Or why any of you elected me for that matter. Half the curia wants me dead.”





	not even to dream

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading too much papal history and this one wouldn't leave me alone. I want to write something a bit longer in this universe one day but I really should be working on other things right now. This is basically just a lil ficlet where Tomas is pope and Marcus is his most trusted cardinal. Probably set during the Renaissance but if I ever do get around to extending this please expect a whole mess of historical inaccuracies lmao.

Tomas collapses down onto his bed with a sigh. “I don’t know why I ever accepted this position. Or why any of you elected me for that matter. Half the curia wants me dead.”

Marcus laughs from the corner of the room, licking sweet wine from his lips. “It was the worst winter Rome has seen in three decades and we were all bloody freezing and half-starved.” At that Tomas frowns, and Marcus’ belly twists into knots. “Your Holiness, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t call me that. Come over here. Please. I’ve seen you hardly at all in a what feels like a fortnight.”

Marcus crosses to where Tomas lounges in his silken vestments, shining with embroidered gold. He’s already kicked off his crimson shoes and Marcus shoves them aside to kneel at Tomas’ feet. “It’s been six days, Your Holiness. Don’t be so dramatic.”

Tomas allows Marcus to draw him close. “Must I issue a bull for you to respect my wishes?”

“Forgive me,” Marcus says quite seriously, taking Tomas’ face between his hands. “I only mean to show you the respect that you are owed as the Vicar of Christ.”

“They don’t want me. They don’t respect me. They don’t—”

Marcus presses a finger to Tomas lips. “My lord Pope, don’t speak in such a way.” Marcus pulls his finger away and smirks, his hands playing along the edge of Tomas’ pellegrina. “Would you do me the honor of allowing me to remove your vestments? I should like to comfort you this evening to make up for my wretched absence.”

In silence, Tomas nods, and Marcus rises to his feet at once. Tomas stands near the foot of the bed and allows Marcus to do as he will, removing first the fringed fascia from around his middle, folding it neatly and placing it on the bed, slipping off Tomas’ pectorale and placing it alongside. He removes the pellegrina from Tomas’ shoulders and rubs at them a little, frowning at the tension he finds.

“It was terrible of me to leave you for so long.”

“You said yourself it was only six days.”

“You deserve better than to be left in solitude.”

Tomas says nothing. Marcus removes the remainder of his vestments until Tomas is standing before him bare, save for the skullcap atop his head and his undergarments. Looking upon his form, Marcus is warmed at once from head-to-foot.

“Sit, Tomas,” Marcus says softly, and Tomas obeys at once. Marcus falls to his knees then, the silken crimson of his cassock fluttering around him. “Successor of the Prince of the Apostles. Servant of the servants of God.” Marcus looks up at Tomas with parted lips and eyes wide, blessed to see the placid expression on his face. He lets relief wash over his chest, bends himself in two and places a single kiss to each of Tomas’ feet. Righting himself again, he shuts his eyes, pushing all the air from his lungs. “Place your hands on me, my sweet Tomas.”

Tomas’ hands, strong and warm, curve around the dome of Marcus’ skull, and at once Marcus feels the holy benediction coursing in his blood. “Tell me what you seek from me tonight, Holy Father,” says Marcus.

They have spent countless nights such as this here in Tomas’ chambers, Tomas’ desires ranging from the most innocent to such debaucheries they dare not speak of them outside of these walls. Tonight, they favor the former, as Marcus suspected they would. “I only wish for you to hold me,” Tomas whispers, pulling his hands away, stroking along the line of Marcus’ cheek when he lifts his eyes upward.

Marcus moves onto the bed at once, and Tomas rests his head gently in Marcus’ lap. Marcus removes the zucchetto from Tomas’ head and begins to stroke his hair. “Every day that I am away from you is misery, Tomas. I wish to never leave your side again, not even for a moment.”

“You have responsibilities.”

“None more important than you.” Marcus cards his fingers into Tomas’ hair, thick and dark, drags his fingers along Tomas’ scalp until he’s all but purring. “I’d allow you to strap me to your bed with my own ferraiolo to use each day as you saw fit if it would only make you smile.”

Tomas huffs out a laugh. “I think that would make you smile as well, Your Eminence.”

Marcus laughs softly at that. “That it would. How they would write about us for years to come should the curia catch wind of such things.”

“Do you live under the illusion that no one knows what you are to me?”

“No,” says Marcus continuing his gentle petting as Tomas curls more completely into his lap, “I just don’t care. Let them talk, let them call us what they will. I am here to serve my lord Pope, no one else.”

“Am I not also your friend.”

“My only true friend in this world, dear Tomas.”

Tomas casts his eyes upward, meeting Marcus' gaze. “Then just for tonight, can we be the men that we were before all of this began?”

Marcus nods, strokes Tomas’ gentle face. “As you wish, my friend.”

Tomas pulls Marcus down to lie with him on the bed. He curls himself closely to Marcus’ chest, tracing patterns into the silk of his cassock. “Take this thing off,” he says, and Marcus does, folding his vestments neatly and placing them near Tomas’ on the far side of the bed. 

They come back together quickly, Tomas holding onto Marcus as though he might otherwise tumble from the earth. “I dream every night that we have run away together,” he says after some silence, as their hands seek out flesh most innocently. “We find a home near the sea and I have a little garden. You catch fish for our dinners and every night you make love to me beneath a blanket of stars.”

Marcus’ heart flutters beneath his ribs. “You’d have me be a fisherman?”

Tomas squeezes him tightly. “I’d have you be mine.”

Marcus presses a kiss into Tomas’ hair. “I am yours. Always, until death. And after. For all eternity. You know that.”

Tomas is quiet for a long stretch of seconds, with his ear over Marcus’ heart and his fingers splayed atop his chest. And finally when he speaks, he says, “I will dream of it still.”

Marcus sighs and shuts his eyes. “Don’t wander too far from me, my sweet Tomas. Not even to dream.”


End file.
